Oftentimes, to purchase a gift card and a greeting card, both items must be purchased separately and both a barcode of the gift card and a barcode of the greeting card must be independently scanned. For example, assume a consumer would like to purchase a gift card 100A of FIG. 1A. Generally, as illustrated in FIG. 1B, a gift card 100B is sold in connection with a paper carrier 102B that secures the gift card 100B and presents it for retail display. In some cases, the front of the paper carrier includes details of the gift card, such as the gift card amount 104B. As illustrated in FIG. 1C, the rear face of the paper carrier 102C includes a barcode 106C and a magnetic strip 108C. The barcode 106C is utilized to initiate a sale of the gift card 100C, and the magnetic strip 108C is utilized to activate the gift card 100C such that the gift card 100C can be used to purchase items. In conventional implementations, the paper carrier 102C is treated as mere packaging and does not result in an additional cost charged to a consumer.
Further assume that the consumer would also like to purchase a greeting card 120D of FIG. 1D to send and hold the gift card 100A of FIG. 1A. As illustrated in FIG. 1E, the rear face of the greeting card 120E includes a barcode 122E used to initiate a sale of the greeting card 120E. To purchase both the gift card 100C of FIG. 1C and the greeting card 120E of FIG. 1E, both the barcode 106C associated with the gift card 100C of FIG. 1C and the barcode 122E associated with the greeting card 120E of FIG. 1E must be independently scanned. Upon scanning the barcode 106C associated with the gift card 100C of FIG. 1C, the price of the gift card is charged to the consumer. Similarly, upon scanning the barcode 122E associated with the greeting card 120E of FIG. 1E, the price of the greeting card is charged to the consumer.
Such an implementation is inefficient in that separate barcodes must be scanned to initiate a sale of each individual item. Further, using such an implementation prevents a gift card and a greeting card (or any combination of multiple items) provided by separate vendors from being sold as a single product with a single barcode.